


Emu is a meme

by neckspike



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Memes, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-10 00:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neckspike/pseuds/neckspike
Summary: What do you do with a reformed Bugster you feel responsible for?





	Emu is a meme

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest thing I’ve ever written and my second fic ever. I’m just really into Kamen Rider right now and after finishing Ex-Aid I have so many questions and ideas. General spoiler warning for Ex-Aid, this is set after the last episode of the TV series. I haven't seen the bonus eps or Final movie yet.
> 
> I have no idea what streaming sites are like in Japan so I’m basically describing Twitch and the culture surrounding odd but harmless “nice” memes.

Hojou Emu didn’t usually have trouble getting into his apartment, which is why he was surprised when the front door rebounded into his face after opening only a few inches. He tried it again more carefully, applying a little more force against the resistance behind the door, and made enough room to squeeze his way through. The obstruction turned out to be an immense heap of cardboard boxes blocking the entry way, a lot of them looked like they once contained computer parts.

When he looked to his right into the “living” area of the LDK where his little futon-sofa and TV lived, there was a brand new computer sitting on the floor by the coffee table. And cables everywhere. And his TV had been moved against the far wall. And there was another, older, bulkier CRT TV in the middle of the room taking up very nearly all the space available. The new old television had a lot of cables running between it and the new PC, it and a few old game consoles, it and some boxes of not immediately obvious function, and cables running to the pair sitting on the sofa laser focused on the game they were playing. Neither looked away from the screen when Emu closed the front door loudly.

 “Yo, Emu!” The young woman with her long hair tied back out of her face said. “We meant to clean that up before you got home but we’re still doing the test run.” Saiba Nico, pro-gamer alias ‘Genius Gamer N’, she’d previously sworn eternal vengeance against Emu but now hung out at his place occasionally to play games with the man seated next to her.

 “Emu, please don’t be mad. We’ll get it all tidied up soon.” The tall man on the couch, whose black hair was a mess of loose curls, chimed in with a wheedling tone. Parad. A Bugster. An enemy turned friend. A video game obsessive and currently living in Emu’s apartment. Parad tipped his head so he could look at Emu without taking his attention completely away from the screen, neither stopped hitting controller buttons for a second. “Please?” He was making puppydog eyes as best he could without interrupting play.

 Emu rubbed his face tiredly, put his bag down on the tiny dining table, and took off his jacket before squeezing between the table and the box pile. That was when he noticed the pieces of masking tape on the wall above the couch and the box on top of the TV that was almost definitely a webcam. He picked his way carefully around the cable disaster and over to the side of the television.

“What IS all this?” He said as he picked up the camera to get a better look.

“FUCK! Emu, what the hell I have to adjust it all over again!” Nico yelled as she jumped up and hurdled the coffee table to snatch it from him. Parad managed to pause the game before he doubled over in mirth. There was a small PC monitor on the end table beside him and he turned it toward himself as he grabbed the wireless keyboard off the coffee table and started typing rapidly.

“Sorry, everybody!” He said towards the camera. “That’s the end of the stream for today, we were supposed to clean up a long time ago. Thanks for watching Genius Gamers N and P!” As Parad shut the stream off Nico ducked back in front of the camera to wave briefly. Emu’s brow creased in irritation.

“Why would you bring all your equipment and this big…” Emu waved his hands at the TV, nearly smacking it. “Thing over here to stream? Surely it would be easier to just let Parad come to your place if you want to play together? He’s not a prisoner, you know.” His hands dropped to his sides helplessly. Nico rolled her eyes and gave up on the camera alignment, moving to unplugging equipment instead.

“It’s not mine, dingus. This is P’s new capture rig, I just designed it and helped him set it up.” Nico said proudly. “AND,” she said, cutting him off before he could protest further. “This is just the test set-up to make sure it works. We got a little carried away and tried to beat the game we threw in to test the system, but now we know it works so once we move things around it will be all tidy and there’ll be room to move around it. And we’re going to take the boxes down to the recycling ourselves.” She finished, with an air of finality that stopped just short of menacing.

“And I’m buying dinner so you don’t have to cook, so it’s all good. We just got a little bit side tracked and didn’t finish as soon as we planned.” Parad added, pressing his hands together in front of his best “I’m really innocent” face. He looked like he was up to something, but he just always looked like he was up to something so it wasn’t a reliable indicator of actual wrong-doing but there was an issue that definitely couldn’t be ignored. Emu could feel the question creeping up from his gut like a nasty burp before he said it.

“You didn’t use my bank card to pay for this, right?” Emu’s voice was a little strained, trying not to get upset before he actually knew for sure that anything was wrong. “I made it really clear that’s for groceries and emergencies.”  Parad looked up from the PC he was unhooking all the cables from and blinked owlishly.

“Of course not. I bought this stuff with my streaming money.” Parad actually looked a little hurt at the thought of stealing from Emu like that.

“Like I’d help him do that.” Nico’s voice dripped with sarcasm and a little bit of offense from behind the big television. She was rolling up cords into neat bundles and stacking them on the shelf in the low TV stand. The chaos in the living area was starting to recede.

“Wh- how do you have that much money from streaming?” Emu managed to stammer out, inside him relief was mixing with confusion and fighting with a bit of guilt over accusing Parad of stealing, and he had that disoriented feeling you get when you realize the world is actually not how you thought it was. The cable mess was mostly rolled up now except for a few hanging from the back of the television and passed out through the shelf underneath.

“People started subscribing to me after I streamed some games against Nico, and throwing me bits and stuff so I had to make a bank account to put it in.” Parad said, unusually serious. He’d quashed the impulse to crack a joke because Emu looked genuinely distressed. “And I didn’t really touch it so it kept building up. So a little while ago I asked Nico if I had enough for a better computer so I could run newer games and she said yeah, with that much we could build a nice computer that could run new games and capture video from consoles and even edit videos nicely and a camera and a microphone so the video and the audio are way better and I really liked the idea of being able to play games from cartridge instead of emulating them so she helped me pick all the stuff and set everything up and the big TV is temporary because I didn’t have quite enough for both a good upscaler for old consoles AND the PC at the same time so we got that at a second hand store and even found some games there so we got that instead and I can upgrade in a few months when I have enough for the good upscaler so games play right on a flatscreen an-”

“Okay! It’s okay.” Emu interrupted Parad’s babbling. “I just, had no idea you had money. Or that anyone was watching you. I’m not mad I’m just… it’s a bit of a shock?” There was definitely a lot more room without the cords all over the floor.

“He’s always streaming, did you think he was playing to no one?” Nico stood up and stretched her back to get the kinks out of it from crouching on the floor for an extended period and wiped her hands on her pants legs. “That’s like all he does when you’re at work is play games on stream and talk. Somebody needs to help me move this thing it weighs like, a million pounds.” She gestured at the television.

Parad set the denuded PC tower down on the coffee table and moved past Emu to take one side of the TV stand, Emu carefully edged his way over to the sofa to get out of the way. He thought of taking Nico’s side of the TV but the two of them had managed to get it in here by themselves, as far as he knew without incident, so he’d probably just be getting in the way. He sat down instead, tired from work. Together, Nico and Parad moved the heavy furniture without incident. It involved some very awkward looking crab walking while raising the hefty television just enough to move it into place against the wall opposite the sofa.

The old television still dominated nearly half of the small living area but now there was just enough room to pass between it and the coffee table without difficulty. It wasn’t ideal, but it was livable. Especially since it was apparently temporary until Parad got that thing he’d been talking about so he could use the flat screen instead. Emu eyes slid closed, his body starting to relax from a day that had been long and then suddenly very confusing.

“Tada! See isn’t that MUCH better?” Nico gestured to the TV as though presenting a gameshow prize, Parad mirrored her pose on the other side. “And the PC, notice how short and fat the case is? It fits right under the end table.” Parad scooped it up and slipped it under the table from the side. Emu leaned forward to see and it did indeed fit neatly, sitting an inch or so back from the edge of the table and having a little bit of clearance at the back for cords to be plugged in. “It’s pretty quiet and there’s sound insulation inside to make it even quieter, you should only hear anything at all if it’s really working hard.” Nico continued, extolling the virtues of the little PC.

“And if you’re entertaining and you don’t want anything out, just unplug the monitor.” Nico strode over and pulled the HDMI and power cables from the back of the LCD display and dropped them behind the end table. “Grab the mouse and keyboard, and put them away out of sight.” She scooped them off the coffee table and walked over to the kitchen area, hopping the edge of the box pile on the way, and put all 3 items neatly away in a cabinet. “Easy to put away, easy to put back. No problems!” She closed the cabinet with a flourish and spread her arms wide, inviting comment. Parad applauded theatrically .

“All right, you’re right.” Emu admitted, smiling at the two of them. “That is much better.” He looked at Parad. “How about you order us some pizza and you two can start cleaning up those boxes while we wait for it?” After a celebratory high five both of them went to work, Nico started breaking down boxes and throwing the styrofoam chunks in a trash bag while Parad went for his phone to order the pizza.

Emu spotted the old laptop sitting on the floor under the coffee table. He’d bought it second hand when Parad had been allowed to move in with him, conditional on his continued good behavior of course. He figured the computer would give the Bugster something to do while he was at work all day, so there was less chance he’d get into some kind of trouble and end up under 24/7 surveillance by the Ministry of Health. That’s how Dan Kuroto lived, and Emu felt kind of sad for him despite all he’d done.

Poppy worked in the hospital and left the office frequently, Kuroto could barely leave the arcade machine to walk around the CR office without written permission. Emu couldn’t really see any way around it, Kuroto was still extremely dangerous if left to his own devices. But Parad had a chance at living a normal-ish life and proving to the Ministry that he was trustworthy, and Emu was determined to support him as much as possible. So the computer. And a few days later he’d bought a pair of controllers for it because Parad had set up emulators and wanted to play games all the time, with Emu if possible.

It had been a good investment. Eight months later, Parad had a perfectly clean record. He spent most of his time playing games (and streaming, apparently. Emu hadn’t realized he was doing it all the time, but it’s not like the laptop looked any different whether the stream was on or not.) and responded immediately if he was called in to assist CR. The chances of the Ministry deciding to seize him seemed remote. (Emu had had a nightmare about that once, suit clad Ministry staff kicked in his front door and sucked up Parad with a bugvisor to take him away.)

Emu retrieved the laptop and opened it up, intending to check the news. Nico and Parad had made significant progress on the box pile and it was quickly becoming a neat stack of flattened cardboard.

The browser was already open to the page for Parad’s stream, the box for the video was black with a little [OFFLINE] legend in the corner. The view counter under the video box had a 5 digit number. Emu felt like his brain had short circuited a bit, even if most of that number had to be because of Nico’s following as a pro gamer.

The chat box was still slightly active and he started reading back, that short circuit feeling increased as he scrolled upwards and people had been talking about him. And posting little pictures of his face as emojis. There were emoji of Parad and Nico as well, and a little character that seemed to be a cartoony rice cooker with a face, and the more expected video game characters and faces, but a whole lot of Emu’s face.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he clicked the little face icon in the text box to bring up the emoji menu, but at least half of the custom emoji were just him. Him looking shocked, him looking excited, him smiling with a big heart drawn around it and sparkles shooting off him, one where the bottom of his face had been cut off and moved so it very crudely looked like he was shouting. He was saying “SMILE~!” Emu stared numbly at an array of his own face.

“Emu!” Parad interrupted his stunned reverie. “Do you know where the twine is?” He asked while rummaging through the utility drawer.

“...bottom cabinet next to the paper towels.” Emu responded finally. His brain slowly started to grind into gear again as he looked away from the screen. “What the _hell_ is going on with your stream page! It’s all pictures of me, and all these people are talking about me!” His eyes were a little wild and panic had started creeping into his voice. Parad stood and tossed the ball of twine to Nico, who managed to catch it despite being overcome with giggles.

“My viewers,” Parad said in his sweetest voice, clapping his hands in front of his face as he walked towards the sofa. “Love you!” He spread his arms wide, beaming with pride.

“They do, they go ballistic if you’re visible on stream.” Nico interjected as she worked on tying up the cardboard stack. “It’s nothing but Emu memes for like the next ten minutes, it’s totally nuts.”

“I’m a meme?” Emu’s voice sounded sort of vacant as visions of being the next Dog Poop Girl flitted through his head. Director Kagami would fire him. Strangers would berate him on public transit. He’d have to move to another country. He’d definitely never done anything to cause that, but logic was drowning in a flashflood of anxiety. He looked up a little, Parad was standing over him with his hands clasped over his mouth.

“Nonononononono.” Parad pulled the laptop out of his hands, setting it back on the coffee table, and clasped Emu’s hands between his own. “It’s okay, it’s not anything bad. They like you because I’ve told them how nice, and kind, and strong Emu is.” Parad tried to soothe him, he’d felt that jolt of fear and looked a little shook up himself as he tried to calm Emu. “I promise you it’s all right. C’mon, let’s read it together ok?” He grabbed the laptop in one hand and pulled Emu up with the other. Emu let himself be led over to the dining table and seated himself. Parad pulled a chair over and sat next to him, opened the laptop and set it down so they could both see it.

“Look it was about this time when you came home so…” Parad rapidly scrolled through the chat log looking for something. “SO this should be when you picked up the came- yeah there it is. Look here’s where you picked up the camera.” He slid the laptop squarely in front of Emu. Nico had propped the cardboard bundle against the wall and was leaning against it trying not to laugh out loud and make things worse.

“Look, everyone’s really happy to see you! See?” Parad had wrapped his arm around Emu’s shoulders and the friendly contact along with reading the comments started to ease the knot of fear in Emu’s gut. They really were all nice, he didn’t understand it but they seemed genuinely happy to be seeing his face interrupt what they were watching. He kept scrolling and let his eyes scan over the messages, just reading the ones that caught his eye. A lot of them were along the same lines.

  * OH IT’S EMU!!
  * HI EMU
  * emu talk to us
  * I love emu
  * emu play with them!
  * emu!!!! give p kisses!!



Emu rested his head in his hand as he kept scrolling the text upwards. He couldn’t shake the anxious feeling that he’d done something embarrassing but it wasn’t an overwhelming feeling of doom anymore. Nico joined them at the table, having managed to compose herself. Parad had moved over to give him some more space when his fear had eased.

“Parad,” he said tiredly, rubbing at his face. “Why are they saying you burned rice. Or didn’t make it? I’m mad about rice?” He’d scrolled down to the point when Parad had stopped the stream and there were a lot of comments about rice and the emoji of the little rice cooker character lying on it’s side with the rice spilled out and Xs for eyes had been liberally spammed.

“Do you remember” Parad asked, his lips quirked into a grin he was failing to restrain very well. He was practically glowing with amusement now and Emu couldn’t help feeling it was at his expense. “the first time you asked me to make rice for dinner?”

Before the word “no” was entirely out of Emu’s mouth, Nico had slid the old laptop to her side of the small table and started typing something. It was only a moment before she returned it to it’s previous position in front of Emu. The screen showed a very blurry looking video, something very low resolution that had been sized up several times. The title read “HE DID IT!!!” in all caps. It was less than two minutes long.

Despite the awful quality the still was definitely Parad sitting on the small sofa in the familiar 1LDK apartment Emu called home. The view looked just right to be from the built in webcam on the old laptop if it was sitting on the coffee table viewing the couch, which made sense. The laptop was pretty much always there because that’s where Parad played games on it.

Emu’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be as embarrassing as he feared. Of course his brain was telling him to brace for utter humiliation, but what could he have possibly done and forgotten so totally? He looked at his friends sitting at the small dining table with him. To his right Parad still sported a shit eating grin and his eyes glimmered with mirth, at his left Nico was rolling her eyes at his hesitation.

“Oh my god” she said sardonically as she reached across him and thumped the spacebar to start the video. As she sat back she crossed her arms and fixed him with a stare that said ‘Really?’

* * *

The first few seconds were just game music and sound effects attenuated through tinny laptop speakers as the fuzzy image of Parad barely moved aside from the activity in the vicinity of his hands.

 “Here comes that jump again…” Video Parad’s expression changed from concentration to a slight scowl, then relaxed into an easy grin. “Got it that time! It’s not pixel perfect but you do _not_ have much leeway there.” The sound of a door opening and closing in the background was only slightly audible over the game music.

 “Parad! I’m home!” in a poorly recorded version of Emu’s voice was perfectly clear, though.

 “Emu! Welcome home!” Video Parad replied loudly, he only glanced briefly to his right but his neutral concentration face had given way to a wide smile when Emu came in. Faint sounds of movement and bags rustling were slightly audible in the background of the video as it showed Parad playing his game for about half a minute before the next interruption. An indistinct shout from the kitchen caused him to pause and look to the right again a moment before Emu stepped into the frame from that side. His face was out of frame but his body language was gleeful.

 “You made the rice!” Video Emu shouted ecstatically, arms spread wide. The Parad in the video started to laugh.

“I did! Just like you told me!” Parad was saying as Emu dove into frame, wrapping Parad up in a rough hug and ruffling his hair as they fell across the couch. After a few seconds of roughhousing and laughter Emu got Parad in a headlock and planted a kiss on top of his head with a loud exaggerated MWAH sound before releasing him and bounding out of frame again.

“This is perfect! It’s going to work!” Emu yelled in the video as he bounced his way back to the kitchen, the disheveled Parad was clearly attempting to stifle his laughter in his hands. “I’m making curry! Get ready for dinner!”

 Parad shook his head in amusement as he reached toward the camera and the video ended.

* * *

Silence reigned at the dining table as Emu digested what he’d just seen. Parad rested his head on his folded hands and batted his eyelashes innocently. Nico arched her eyebrows expectantly.

“Oh god, I do remember that.” Emu said as his posture began to relax, the anxiety from anticipation of life ending embarrassment slowly drained out of him. It was a little embarrassing but it was a livable level of embarrassing. It probably also explained the ‘give him a kiss’ comments but he felt too relieved to ask just now.

“You’d only been here about a month and work was really busy and I was worrying a lot about if you living here was going to work. I didn’t want you to have to go live at the Ministry or Genm or something.” he sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. “I just… it was a long day and when you’d made the rice and it was right I was just really relieved and happy because I felt like ‘Ok, I can give him tasks to do and it’s all going to work out.’” He paused.

“And I guess it is kinda funny if you don’t know any of that because it looks like I’m just absolutely losing my shit over some rice.” He admitted. “How many people were watching when that happened?”

“Like 3, I think? I’d only streamed anything a couple times before at that point.”

“One of them was me.” Nico volunteered, raising her hand. “Gonna be right up front, I made the video clip. It was adorable and the world needed to see it. Even if it looked like it was filmed on a potato.”

“Everyone on the internet had to know how cute Emu is.” Nico cracked up again as Parad made heart hands under his face. The intercom buzzed and Parad hopped up to pay for the pizza.  Emu closed the laptop and tossed it onto the sofa. He’d been home for less than an hour and it felt like a decade had passed, he wanted to eat and have no more weird revelations. More questions, like if Bugsters need to pay income taxes, could wait for tomorrow. Emu was wiped out.

“We’ll finish this up real quick after dinner, you look exhausted.” Nico said as Parad slid a personal pizza box in front of her and lifted the lid.

“Your payment, mademoiselle.” Nico made a show of inspecting the proffered pizza.

“Acceptable. You may serve.” She dramatically waved him away and he swanned over to the counter where he plated a few slices before returning. Emu got a few bites into his meal before something occurred to him.

“Parad,” He set his pizza down and cleaned his hands with a napkin. “can I see your bank card?” Parad nodded with his mouth full of pizza and obligingly dug into his pocket to hand it over. Emu held it up.

HOJOU PARAD embossed in gold letters.

Emu nodded to himself and handed it back.

Anything else might have been a surprise. But just for once, on the weirdest evening he'd had in a long time, something was exactly as he expected it to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Dog Poop Girl was a meme from the far off year of 2005. A passenger took pictures of a woman refusing to clean up after her dog when it shit on the floor of a subway car in South Korea and posted the pictures online to considerable outrage. Internet detectives quickly identified the girl and made her life hell, she had to drop out of University and even endured harassment in public when she was recognized by complete strangers. You can see why Emu was so shook if that’s what he thought being a meme meant.


End file.
